IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v147y2018i2d10.1007_s10551-015-2960-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Internalization of Environmental Practices and Institutional Complexity: Can Stakeholders Pressures Encourage Greenwashing?

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Testa

    (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Institute of Management)

  • Olivier Boiral

    (Université Laval)

  • Fabio Iraldo

    (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Institute of Management)

Abstract

This paper analyzes the determinants underlying the internalization of proactive environmental management proposed by certifiable environmental management systems (EMSs) such as those set out in ISO 14001 and the European Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS). Using a study based on 232 usable questionnaires from EMAS-registered organizations, we explored the influence of institutional pressures from different stakeholders and the role of corporate strategy in the “substantial” versus “symbolic” integration of environmental practices. The results highlighted that although institutional pressures generally strengthen the internalization of proactive environmental practices, the influence of stakeholders can either support the integration of these practices or encourage their superficial adoption. For example, while pressure from suppliers and shareholders contribute to corporate greening, pressure from customers and industrial associations tend to encourage greenwashing (i.e., the superficial and misleading adoption of environmental practices). Product quality-oriented strategies also positively influence EMS internalization. The paper sheds light on the institutional complexity underlying the substantial versus symbolic implementation of environmental practices, and questions the dominant isomorphic view of EMS adoption. The paper also bridges the gap between complementary approaches on corporate greening, notably neo-institutional and stakeholder theories.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Testa & Olivier Boiral & Fabio Iraldo, 2018. "Internalization of Environmental Practices and Institutional Complexity: Can Stakeholders Pressures Encourage Greenwashing?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 287-307, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:147:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-015-2960-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2960-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-015-2960-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-015-2960-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Noushi Rahman & Corinne Post, 2012. "Measurement Issues in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR): Toward a Transparent, Reliable, and Construct Valid Instrument," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(3), pages 307-319, February.
    2. Jay B. Barney, 1986. "Strategic Factor Markets: Expectations, Luck, and Business Strategy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(10), pages 1231-1241, October.
    3. Andreas Georg Scherer & Guido Palazzo & David Seidl, 2013. "Managing Legitimacy in Complex and Heterogeneous Environments: Sustainable Development in a Globalized World," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 259-284, March.
    4. Mignon D. Van Halderen & Mamta Bhatt & Guido A. J. M. Berens & Tom J. Brown & Cees B. M. Van Riel, 2014. "Managing Impressions in the Face of Rising Stakeholder Pressures: Examining Oil Companies' Shifting Stances in the Climate Change Debate," Post-Print hal-01563060, HAL.
    5. Magali Delmas & Michael W. Toffel, 2004. "Stakeholders and environmental management practices: an institutional framework," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 209-222, July.
    6. Magali A. Delmas & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Organizational responses to environmental demands: opening the black box," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(10), pages 1027-1055, October.
    7. Royston Greenwood & Amalia Magán Díaz & Stan Xiao Li & José Céspedes Lorente, 2010. "The Multiplicity of Institutional Logics and the Heterogeneity of Organizational Responses," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 521-539, April.
    8. Nicole Darnall & Irene Henriques & Perry Sadorsky, 2010. "Adopting Proactive Environmental Strategy: The Influence of Stakeholders and Firm Size," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(6), pages 1072-1094, September.
    9. Marie‐Josée Roy & Olivier Boiral & Denis Lagacé, 2001. "Environmental commitment and manufacturing excellence: a comparative study within Canadian industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(5), pages 257-268, September.
    10. Barla, Philippe, 2007. "ISO 14001 certification and environmental performance in Quebec's pulp and paper industry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 291-306, May.
    11. Olivier Boiral, 2013. "Sustainability reports as simulacra? A counter-account of A and A+ GRI reports," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(7), pages 1036-1071, September.
    12. Haitao Yin & Peter J. Schmeidler, 2009. "Why do standardized ISO 14001 environmental management systems lead to heterogeneous environmental outcomes?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(7), pages 469-486, November.
    13. Nakamura, Masao & Takahashi, Takuya & Vertinsky, Ilan, 2001. "Why Japanese Firms Choose to Certify: A Study of Managerial Responses to Environmental Issues," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 23-52, July.
    14. Kristel Buysse & Alain Verbeke, 2003. "Proactive environmental strategies: a stakeholder management perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 453-470, May.
    15. Henriques, Irene & Sadorsky, Perry, 1996. "The Determinants of an Environmentally Responsive Firm: An Empirical Approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 381-395, May.
    16. Kozo Horiuchi & Masao Nakamura, 2001. "Environmental Issues and Japanese Firms," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Masao Nakamura (ed.), The Japanese Business and Economic System, chapter 13, pages 364-384, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Pratima Bansal, 2003. "From Issues to Actions: The Importance of Individual Concerns and Organizational Values in Responding to Natural Environmental Issues," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(5), pages 510-527, October.
    18. Béatrice Parguel & Florence Benoît-Moreau & Fabrice Larceneux, 2011. "How Sustainability Ratings Might Deter ‘Greenwashing’: A Closer Look at Ethical Corporate Communication," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 15-28, August.
    19. Stefan Schaltegger & Florian Lüdeke-Freund & Erik G. Hansen, 2012. "Business cases for sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability," International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(2), pages 95-119.
    20. Frances Drake & Martin Purvis & Jane Hunt, 2004. "Meeting the environmental challenge: a case of win–win or lose–win? A study of the UK baking and refrigeration industries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 172-186, May.
    21. Royston Greenwood & C. R. Hinings & Dave Whetten, 2014. "Rethinking Institutions and Organizations," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(7), pages 1206-1220, November.
    22. Stephen Bear & Noushi Rahman & Corinne Post, 2010. "The Impact of Board Diversity and Gender Composition on Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Reputation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(2), pages 207-221, December.
    23. Anja Schaefer, 2007. "Contrasting Institutional and Performance Accounts of Environmental Management Systems: Three Case Studies in the UK Water & Sewerage Industry," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 506-535, June.
    24. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4687 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Cho, Charles H. & Laine, Matias & Roberts, Robin W. & Rodrigue, Michelle, 2015. "Organized hypocrisy, organizational façades, and sustainability reporting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 78-94.
    26. Francesco Testa & Natalia M. Gusmerotti & D. Amirante & Marco Frey, 2012. "The role of negotiating tools in the environmental policy mix instruments: determinants and effects of Environmental Agreement," Working Papers 201202, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa, Istituto di Management.
    27. Ruihua Joy Jiang & Pratima Bansal, 2003. "Seeing the Need for ISO 14001," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 1047-1067, June.
    28. Darnall, Nicole & Henriques, Irene & Sadorsky, Perry, 2008. "Do environmental management systems improve business performance in an international setting?," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 364-376, December.
    29. T. Daddi & M. Magistrelli & M. Frey & F. Iraldo, 2011. "Do environmental management systems improve environmental performance? Empirical evidence from Italian companies," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 845-862, October.
    30. Michael V. Russo, 2009. "Explaining the impact of ISO 14001 on emission performance: a dynamic capabilities perspective on process and learning," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 307-319, July.
    31. Stuart L. Hart & Gautam Ahuja, 1996. "Does It Pay To Be Green? An Empirical Examination Of The Relationship Between Emission Reduction And Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 30-37, March.
    32. Clarkson, Peter M. & Li, Yue & Richardson, Gordon D. & Vasvari, Florin P., 2008. "Revisiting the relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: An empirical analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(4-5), pages 303-327.
    33. Wong, Christina W.Y. & Lai, Kee-hung & Shang, Kuo-Chung & Lu, Chin-Shan & Leung, T.K.P., 2012. "Green operations and the moderating role of environmental management capability of suppliers on manufacturing firm performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 283-294.
    34. Yu-Shan Chen & Ching-Hsun Chang, 2013. "The Determinants of Green Product Development Performance: Green Dynamic Capabilities, Green Transformational Leadership, and Green Creativity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 107-119, August.
    35. Olivier Boiral, 2007. "Corporate Greening Through ISO 14001: A Rational Myth?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 127-146, February.
    36. Guoyou Qi & Saixing Zeng & Xiaodong Li & Chiming Tam, 2012. "Role of Internalization Process in Defining the Relationship between ISO 14001 Certification and Corporate Environmental Performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), pages 129-140, May.
    37. Petra Christmann & Glen Taylor, 2006. "Firm self-regulation through international certifiable standards: determinants of symbolic versus substantive implementation," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(6), pages 863-878, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claudia Poser & Edeltraud Guenther & Marc Orlitzky, 2012. "Shades of green: using computer-aided qualitative data analysis to explore different aspects of corporate environmental performance," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 413-450, January.
    2. Pablo Arocena & Raquel Orcos & Fedaous Zouaghi, 2021. "The impact of ISO 14001 on firm environmental and economic performance: The moderating role of size and environmental awareness," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 955-967, February.
    3. Wenlong He & Wei Yang & Seong-jin Choi, 2018. "The Interplay Between Private and Public Regulations: Evidence from ISO 14001 Adoption Among Chinese Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 477-497, October.
    4. Christin Seifert & Edeltraud Guenther, 2020. "Who cares?—Stakeholder relevance for voluntary environmental management in hospitals," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1786-1799, July.
    5. Elisabet Garrido & Consuelo González & Raquel Orcos, 2020. "ISO 14001 and CO2 emissions: An analysis of the contingent role of country features," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 698-710, February.
    6. Iñaki Heras‐Saizarbitoria & German Arana & Olivier Boiral, 2016. "Outcomes of Environmental Management Systems: the Role of Motivations and Firms’ Characteristics," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8), pages 545-559, December.
    7. Yogesh Bhatt & Karminder Ghuman, 2023. "Corporate environmental responsiveness: a bibliometric and content analysis," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 1303-1350, September.
    8. Cody Jones, 2013. "Moving Beyond Profit: Expanding Research to Better Understand Business Environmental Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-29, June.
    9. Alberto Díaz de Junguitu & Erlantz Allur, 2019. "The Adoption of Environmental Management Systems Based on ISO 14001, EMAS, and Alternative Models for SMEs: A Qualitative Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Artitzar Erauskin‐Tolosa & Eugenio Zubeltzu‐Jaka & Iñaki Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Olivier Boiral, 2020. "ISO 14001, EMAS and environmental performance: A meta‐analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 1145-1159, March.
    11. Qi Guoyou & Zeng Saixing & Tam Chiming & Yin Haitao & Zou Hailiang, 2013. "Stakeholders' Influences on Corporate Green Innovation Strategy: A Case Study of Manufacturing Firms in China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 1-14, January.
    12. Guoyou Qi & Saixing Zeng & Xiaodong Li & Chiming Tam, 2012. "Role of Internalization Process in Defining the Relationship between ISO 14001 Certification and Corporate Environmental Performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(3), pages 129-140, May.
    13. Luca Marrucci & Tiberio Daddi, 2022. "The contribution of the Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme to the environmental performance of manufacturing organisations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1347-1357, May.
    14. Tiberio Daddi & Iñaki Heras‐Saizarbitoria & Luca Marrucci & Francesco Rizzi & Francesco Testa, 2021. "The effects of green supply chain management capability on the internalisation of environmental management systems and organisation performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(4), pages 1241-1253, July.
    15. James Cordeiro & Manish Tewari, 2015. "Firm Characteristics, Industry Context, and Investor Reactions to Environmental CSR: A Stakeholder Theory Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 833-849, September.
    16. Anton Shevchenko, 2021. "Do financial penalties for environmental violations facilitate improvements in corporate environmental performance? An empirical investigation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1723-1734, May.
    17. Holtbrügge, Dirk & Dögl, Corinna, 2012. "How international is corporate environmental responsibility? A literature review," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 180-195.
    18. Konstantinos Iatridis & Effie Kesidou, 2018. "What Drives Substantive Versus Symbolic Implementation of ISO 14001 in a Time of Economic Crisis? Insights from Greek Manufacturing Companies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(4), pages 859-877, April.
    19. Quang Le Van & Thanh Viet Nguyen & Manh Hung Nguyen, 2019. "Sustainable development and environmental policy: The engagement of stakeholders in green products in Vietnam," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 675-687, July.
    20. David G Hyatt & Nicholas Berente, 2017. "Substantive or Symbolic Environmental Strategies? Effects of External and Internal Normative Stakeholder Pressures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1212-1234, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:147:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-015-2960-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.